Comic Potential

Hosted by University of Victoria Phoenix Theatre

Location

3800 Finnerty Rd, Victoria, BC, Canada

February 15 at 2:00 PM

Considered one of the funniest and most inventive plays by Britain’s grandmaster of comedy, this romantic sci-fi satire is set in the foreseeable future, when actors are replaced with convincingly lifelike robots known as “actoids.” Adam, an aspiring young writer, visits a TV studio to meet his idol, Chandler, the director of a never-ending hospital soap opera who was once a great movie director. On the set, Adam discovers the charming android Jacie Tripplethree (serial number JCF 31333) and realizes that the programming glitch that makes her laugh hysterically also makes her more human. Adam and Chandler start developing a new TV show for Jacie to star in, but the studio executives aren’t convinced. Will Adam lose his heart to a robot? Will his show get the green light? Will love prevail? Tune in to find out!

In the age of today’s virtual online assistants, this wickedly funny satire from 1998 reads like a cautionary tale of the rise of artificial intelligence.